It hurts to see the Girl on Fire go out on such a lukewarm note. The final installment of the “Hunger Games” franchise manages to give us everything we’ve been waiting for and still underwhelm. The third and weakest book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy should never have been split into two films, but since that’s become money-grubbing standard
practice for young-adult adaptations (“Twilight,” “Divergent”), here we are.
Of course, there’s still the pleasure of watching Jennifer Lawrence as steely yet vulnerable Katniss Everdeen, a heroine for the ages. But four films in, it’s hard not to suspect that Katniss’ visible discomfort, at being branded as the iconic Mockingjay, is actually Lawrence’s, at knowing this is all getting a little stale.
We join her in recovery, after being attacked by the brainwashed Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) at the end of “Part 1,” but soon she’s pleading with enigmatic rebel president Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and her adviser Plutarch Heavensbee (the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) for a return to the field, as the insurgency prepares to take the fight to the Capitol and President Snow (Donald Sutherland, still deliciously sinister).
After a brief stop to rally District 2 — and meet with a commander played by Gwendoline Christie, Brienne in “Game of Thrones” — Katniss sneaks onto a convoy bound for the Capitol, where she joins erstwhile love interest Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and a small band of rebels, including fellow Games survivor Finnick (Sam Claflin), to mount an assault and assassinate Snow.
A tedious nod to video game culture ensues, with a series of booby-trapped “pods” set by Snow’s game-makers. Fire, bullets, blades, a flood of nebulous black fluid and quasi-zombies are deployed, paring down the group’s numbers.
Courtesy of videographer Cressida (Natalie Dormer) and a stylist friend in the Capitol, Katniss and Gale head to the presidential mansion hidden under . . . cloaks. A minor quibble for director Francis Lawrence: Wouldn’t this have been an excellent opportunity to trick them out in Capitol couture, one of the most visually arresting aspects of the first two movies?
And now, a major one: The climax of “Mockingjay” features the shocking death of one character, which is downplayed here to an extent that, I felt, betrayed or at least misread Collins’ story. To a lesser extent, the traumatized Peeta — the story’s emotional heavyweight — is largely sidelined.
Still, there are moments. Though they all have little to do, it’s heartening to check in with fluttery Effie (Elizabeth Banks), Woody Harrelson’s wry Haymitch, Stanley Tucci’s Technicolor TV host Caesar Flickerman, Jeffrey Wright’s IT guy Beetee and Jena Malone as wounded warrior Johanna.
More centrally, the war of wills between Katniss and Snow — girl power versus patriarchal tyranny — remains as zesty as ever. But given how generic this film’s action sequences are, I’d have preferred just two hours of Lawrence and Sutherland narrowing their eyes at one another.